“The pain you feel now will ease with time.”

So far, I have found this to be statement untrue. As yet the pain has not decreased at all, in fact it feels like it has increased. With each day that passes I miss Lennon more and more, and it hurts. The gapping hole in our lives feels like it is slowly growing.

I’ve gone from sleeping like a log to sleeping badly. I’ve never struggled to sleep before. I toss and turn in bed, trying to turn my complex thoughts into some form of sense.

Recently Lennon appears frequently in my dreams – sometimes he is alive, others he is dead. And despite waking up some nights sobbing, struggling to catch my breath, I do get great comfort from seeing him. I find myself feeling upset when I don’t dream about him.

 

 

Every morning I get up to yet another day without Lennon.

There are days when I have to force myself out of bed. Grief is exhausting – it seems to steal my energy leaving my head foggy. If it wasn’t for my girls I don’t think I would make the effort to get up and dressed every day.

Florence has been struggling with her grief. Her behaviour has been awful for over a month now. Granted, she has never been an ‘easy’ child (anyone who’s spent time with her will know that!) but even school have noticed that she is talking about Lennon more so than usual.

She regularly asks where Lennon has gone and it’s so hard for us to explain. Lennon is dead, but I have no idea ‘where’ he is….

 

 

My little girl needs bereavement support – support that I cannot give her.

Florence is a strong, stubborn child and doesn’t like to ‘talk’ or explain how she feels. She is a complex character and even I, as her mother, find her difficult to understand.

Isla however is the opposite. She is an outwardly sensitive child who wears her heart on her sleeve. She is much easier to read and will always approach someone when her feelings overwhelm her.

 

 

Isla has fantastic support at school, which is good as she doesn’t like to get upset in front of Ian and I. School is her safe place to grieve. She struggles in the holidays – there is no where for her to hide her grief from us and the Lennon shaped hole in our home is so much more apparent in the school holidays.

Isla misses her brother and is struggling to coming to terms with the fact that she will never see her big brother again.

Watching my children grieve for their brother is as painful as my own grief.

 

 

I have been having flashbacks. My mind wanders back to that day. I replay moments minute by minute. I remember the last time he was at home, in his bed. I see Ian carrying him out to the ambulance.

I find myself back in the Intensive care unit, signing the consent form for Lennon to go to theatre. Lying next to him in bed while the doctors turns of his life support.

I try my hardest to override those thoughts with happy memories – Lennon’s bright, beaming smile and his clicking noises.

 

 

 

 

Life without Lennon is still so difficult to comprehend.

I cannot imagine life without grief and pain and I cannot imagine the pain getting easier with time.

Maybe it will, maybe it won’t.